Progress!

Captions.com has once again compiled and published its list of which companies aired commercials which were closed-captioned during the 2010 Superbowl, and which ads did not include captions.

An impressive shift. Well over twice as many ads were captioned as uncaptioned this year! That's a remarkable improvement over 2009, when the breakdown was near-even, with one more ad uncaptioned than captioned, and one which didn't require captioning (relying primarily on music). And it's a dramatic improvement over 2008, with 20 captioned ads vs. 34 uncaptioned.

To repeat Captions.com's basic point in making these lists:

A 30-second ad during the Super Bowl is 2.7 million dollars - ($2,700,000.00).
The cost to caption that ad is approximately $200.

[H]ow many sponsors were willing to spend the extra money to make their ad accessible and connect with the 28 million Americans who are deaf or hard of hearing[?]

It's encouraging, is what it is. Oh, and also the Saints won, which kind of rocked.

(This is doubtless the most engaged I will be with American football for my entire life.)

ronnie